On one side of the Atlantic, the eurozone debt crisis has spread to the countries that may be too big to save - Spain and Italy - though RBS thinks a €3.5 trillion rescue fund would ensure survival of Europe's currency union. On the other side, the recovery has sputtered out and the printing presses are being oiled again. China, Russia, Brazil, India, the Mid-East petro-powers have diversified their $7 trillion reserves into euros over the last decade to limit dollar exposure. As Europe's monetary union itself faces an existential crisis, there is no other safe-haven currency able to absorb the flows. "It is very scary: the flight to gold is accelerating at a faster and faster speed," said Peter Hambro, chairman of Britain's biggest pure gold listing Petropavlovsk. "One of the big US banks texted me today to say that if QE3 actually happens, we could see gold at $5,000 and silver at $1,000. I feel terribly sorry for anybody on fixed incomes tied to a fiat currency because they are not going to be able to buy things with that paper money." China, Russia, Brazil, India, the Mid-East petro-powers have diversified their $7 trillion reserves into euros over the last decade to limit dollar exposure. As Europe's monetary union itself faces an existential crisis, there is no other safe-haven currency able to absorb the flows. The Swiss franc, Canada's loonie, the Aussie, and Korea's won are too small. "There is no depth of market in these other currencies, so gold is the obvious play," said Neil Mellor from BNY Mellon. Western central banks (though not the US, Germany, or Italy) sold much of their gold at the depths of the bear market a decade ago. Step by step, the world is edging towards a revived Gold Standard as it becomes clearer that Japan and the West have reached debt saturation. World Bank chief Robert Zoellick said it was time to "consider employing gold as an international reference point." The Swiss parliament is to hold hearings on a parallel "Gold Franc". Utah has recognised gold as legal tender for tax payments. Read full at: ttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8638644/Return-of-the-Gold-Standard-as-world-order-unravels.html
http://licreddy.com/Content/information/insurancenews_details.asp?NewsCode=4872 LIC Buys Double as Prices Dive 10-Aug-2011 Life Insurance Corp of India, the government's institution of choice to stabilise the stock market whenever it gets wobbly, has more than doubled stock purchases in the past three days as the global debt worry-triggered selloff made valuations attractive. LIC, the country's biggest investor with stakes in L&T, Axis Bank and Grasim, will raise its secondary market purchases this fiscal as IPOs dry up with promoters not keen to sell shares at lower valuations. "We have been buying in the past few days,'' said a LIC executive involved in decisionmaking. "With the market correcting and not many public issues coming up, we would be investing more in secondary market," said the person who did not want to be identified. LIC to Invest . 50k Cr More LIC, which had been buying stocks for an average of . 120 crore in the first four...
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